Lament of the Warrior
by BenignUser
Summary: Long after the last of the Chosen Children have left the Digital World, an ever-ageing figure visits the Village of Beginnings.


Date Started: May 16th, 2005  
Date Finished: May 17th, 2005

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Summary: ___Long after the last of the Chosen Children have left the Digital World, an ever-ageing figure visits the Village of Beginnings._

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Lament of the Warrior

The lone traveler roamed through the climates of the island rather roughly, yet navigated quite easily. Once, a long time ago, he ruled over this land under the watchful eye of his superior. But now the Dark Messenger lay long dead, defeated many long years ago by the seven Chosen Children that had entered this world, and thus the traveler ruled no more. The prophecies of ages past had come true, and Ogremon found that he had no place in their aftermath. Fate had given him his own path to walk.

The green figure took one last step before stopping now atop an overlooking hillside. The Village of Beginnings was close now. He could see it in the distance. He stood still, however, and wondered. Now that his path was nearing its end, what was left for him? He was dying, he knew, as the years were finally managing to catch up to the ageing warrior. The wooden club that was once a fearful weapon was more often than not used as a walking tool to help him stay afoot. He would often tightly grip at his weapon, to remind himself of who he was, to remind himself that he wasn't weak, that he wasn't ageing, and that he wasn't about to die alone.

His moral sense drove him forward. The morality that had haunted him since the day he failed to save that one single life that meant more to him than he could have ever known. _Digimon don't die_, the phrase returned to taunt him, and so he pressed forward. The Village of Beginnings was within reach, and the annual season for hatching was about to begin. New digimon were about to be born. And a few long-dead digimon were about to be given a second chance at life.

The grip he held over his wooden club gave away for one single step, but that single step proved more than enough and he lost his downhill footing. His balance left him right then, and he collided with the soft earth below. His body continued rolling downwards, and he curled up in an attempt to lessen the pain. When he finally came to a stop, he simply lay on his front, breathing heavily from the hurt and exhaustion. This was not the first time he had made this pilgrimage, and he refused to believe it would be the last.

Many visits to the Village of Beginnings had come and gone, and always he whom he wanted to see live again had not yet risen. Since his very first visit after the defeat of Apocalymon, the years came by, and the years went by, and he continued to wait. New evils appeared, new Chosen appeared, and the process indefinitely repeated. But none of that mattered to him. _His_ Chosen were gone. They no longer visited. They no longer came to save his world. He let out a heavy breath from his place on the ground, as he reached for his club and tried to lift himself upwards. He couldn't admit it to himself that he had simply outlasted them. He couldn't admit that _his_ Chosen no longer lived.

As he heaved himself off the ground, his reflection gazed back at him from a nearby puddle. The water was calm, and large in size only enough to show the figure his face from where he now stood. The once dark horns that had stood so proudly as a sign of terror upon his forehead were now a pale grey, and withered to an outwards slant that seemed to barely keep them from toppling over. Holes in his ears were all that remained from where his once proud double piercings had hung. Dull eyes and a near-toothless mouth haunted his visions, but he couldn't seem to break away from the reflection. His skin, too, had long before begun to lose its lively shade of green.

Perhaps it was his ill, his wrongdoing. He had refused to allow himself to evolve. With age, came natural evolution. But with evolution came more power. This was power he didn't want. No matter how long it would take, he would wait for his rival's reformation, and he would wait it out in his current form.

The dull eyes still stared back at him from the water pool. He knew then that he hated them. His reflection was sickening. He turned his head away, and struggled back to his feet. He was weak, ugly, and alone, was there any point in moving forward? The Village of Beginnings was within his grasp, but for the first time he feared visiting it. What if, for another year, Leomon wasn't going to be reborn? He thought back to _his_ Chosen. What would the Child of Purity say to him now? What of the Child of Sincerity?

Without those two, he would have been long gone. But those two were no longer children now. Those two were no longer alive now. Leomon had given his life for them. And Ogremon, too, had been more than willing to do the same for them on more than one occasion. But now they were gone. _His_ Chosen were but a fading memory. What were their names? He couldn't recall. It saddened him, as did his ageing. He wanted to stop, to think, to force himself to remember the names of his saviors. Instead, he continued walking.

The digimon now walked the lands of the Village of Beginnings. His long journey was now coming to a close. The caretaker of the Village, an Elecmon, nodded from afar. It was a generous greeting, not one usually given to a virus entering a Village full of babies, but one that was given in tradition to an old friend of common history and shared experience. Ogremon raised his club in the air slightly, signaling his own greeting to the caretaker, and began his search through the many newly hatching eggs.

To various sides, he could see other digimon searching through the eggs as well, much like he was doing. This was a common gathering that occurred, and more or less, it was the same digimon that appeared here every single year, waiting for the rebirths. Whether they were searching for old foes, allies, or lost friends, he could not say. Nobody ever spoke. But like him, they felt the journey to the Village of Beginnings was a necessity.

At times, Ogremon would catch a human child in the Village. They would come by here to pick up lost partners that had been lost in battle. Ogremon would always scoff groggily at them whenever he'd see one, reminding them that _his_ Chosen had never lost their partners. This time, there were no humans.

An egg hatched in front of him. A very familiar presence surrounded the hatching creature. Ogremon stared at the baby that escaped from the shell. It was a brown, sphere-shaped head, two ears escaping out to the sides and a similar shaped tail coming from behind. A pair of tiny dark eyes stared out from the baby, looking up at him. A moment of silence passed, and Ogremon instantly knew. This was the life he had been waiting for to be reformatted.

He dropped to his knees, feeling weak and overwhelmed by sorrowful emotions. The baby in front of him looked at him oddly, risking a glance at the ageing digimon, but remained still.

And Ogremon collapsed. There was a sudden fear that came over him – a terrifying fear. And as soon as it came, it just as quickly passed through him. His drive to see his rival reborn was what had kept him alive all these years. Now that it had finally happened, he realized that his body was giving away. It was reverting back into data, and he was finally about to die. He desperately looked at the baby digimon in front of him.

"Leomon…" he barely managed to choke out, "Forgive… me… for I am not… strong enough."

"Puni?" The baby questioned. The green body didn't respond, instead it dissipated, and the sparse data flew off into the sky.

A sad and wailing voice simply echoed around the confused baby. "I beg of you, Leomon… wait for me, as I had waited for you. I will return, I swear on it, I will return to you."

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End Notes:  
- The "Village of Beginnings" is Primary Village  
- The "Dark Messenger" refers to Devimon  
- The baby Digimon in the fic is a Punimon, one plausible de-evolution of Leomon.  
- In the Japanese version, Mimi had the Crest of Purity, and Jyou had the Crest of Sincerity.


End file.
